Category: long story short

Bush: U.S. Looking Into Whether Iran Involved In 9/11 Article [My italics] The commission has found more al Qaeda contacts with Iran than with Iraq, officials said. [But] White House spokesman Scott McClellan said there was “no evidence that there was any official involvement between Iran and the Sept. 11 attacks.”…. Bush noted McLaughlin had…

NASA Denies Funding for Key Satellite, Washington Post. 7/19/04 NASA is allowing a highly successful satellite to fall out of Earth’s orbit by refusing to fund it….NASA…did not order a planned firing of its rockets…to hold the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite in orbit….Without periodic assists from its thrusters, atmospheric drag will send the satellite’s…

Count the I’s in this one.

NYT “Sarkozy….has acquired a reputation as a man of action…who speaks his mind on controversial issues, while Chirac is often seen as reigning more than ruling, speaking obtusely and saying little to offend.” In this case, the word they meant to use is anybody’s guess. Mainly obscurely, I’d think, with some mix of abstrusely, opaquely,…

There have been a lot of complaints that our system of color-coded terrorism alerts does not provide enough useful information. When Ridge or Ashcroft issues a new threat alert, they never specify the targets. Will it be kidnapped prisoners? Random bystanders? Home invasion sprees? Wedding parties in the desert? Well, give me a break! Obviously,…

Is A Housing Bubble About To Burst? Business Week “If 30-year fixed-rate mortgages rise just one percentage point, to 7.2% from their current 6.2% … house prices would have to fall 11% to keep new buyers’ monthly mortgage payments from rising. If fixed rates went to 8%, prices would need to fall 20% to keep…